Chapter 1 — The Last Page of Heaven
The sky above the Demonic Realm was red.
Not because of sunset.
But because the clouds had been burning for three days. Straight.
Ash drifted like snow across the battlefield, settling upon corpses that no longer possessed names.
At the center of the carnage stood a single man. Darkness surrounding him, as if the Darkness itself embraced him.
Black robes torn. He was wearing a long white evening dress with a fitted bodice and a flowing skirt that flares out towards the bottom. It is decorated with intricate gold trim that runs along the bodice, sleevs that reach the floor. The gold trim features intricate patterns, reminiscent of floral design and geometric symbols. And the belt is decorated with a gold buckle and a dangling chain of jade on it. Silver hair stained crimson. Eyes calm.
Xuan yin wuming.
Demonic Sovereign.
The man who walked beneath Heaven's laws — and rewrote them.
Thousands surrounded him.
Righteous Sect masters. Demonic generals. Former allies. Former enemies. Former friends. Former bonds. Everyone and everything.
They had stopped shouting long ago.
When fear becomes absolute, voices disappear.
In his left hand, he held a book.
It was not large. It was not radiant. It did not glow with divine light.
It was simple.
Black cover. No title.
Yet for this book, ten great sects had collapsed. For this book, mountains had been erased. For this book, loyalty had rotted into ambition.
The wind howled.
Someone screamed.
"Xuan yin wuming! Hand over the Book of Heaven and Demons!"
He did not look up.
He turned a page.
His voice was soft. Calm.
"Page 9,841… soul displacement through karmic fracture."
Another page turned.
"Page 9,842… Dao interference… insufficient."
A spear shot toward his throat.
Without looking, he tilted his head half an inch.
The spear passed.
The attacker's chest exploded an instant later.
Xuan yin wuming did not even lift a finger.
The man had died because he stood too close to him.
That was all.
One thousand years.
One thousand years since he first opened his eyes in this world.
He had been a surgeon once.
On Earth.
A neurosurgeon.
He had believed in neurons. Electrical impulses. Chemical reactions. Technology.
He had believed the soul was a poetic lie.
Then he woke up in a battlefield of qi and blood.
He adapted.
Because adaptation is survival.
He dissected cultivation the way he once dissected brains.
Meridians were pathways. Qi was bioelectric current. Dantian was a reservoir.
He learned faster than the natives.
Because he did not worship Heaven.
He analyzed it.
And when analysis is paired with ruthlessness, progress becomes monstrous.
He slaughtered. He studied. He conquered.
Not for power.
Power was never the goal.
It was only a scalpel.
His goal had always been singular.
Return.
Return to Earth.
Return to operating rooms. Return to sterile lights. Return to a world without absurd "Heavenly Mandates."
That goal carried him through centuries of blood.
And finally—
The Book had appeared.
A compilation of righteous techniques and demonic arts. Forbidden spells. Soul contracts. Ancient Dao inscriptions.
The final puzzle.
A blade pierced through his abdomen.
He glanced down.
A former ally.
Eyes trembling. Fear and guilt mixed together.
"I… I'm sorry…"
Xuan Yin wuming nodded once.
Loyalty is easy when you are winning, when you are in their favor, when you serve them and satisfy every desire. But when the tide turns, when they sense you are losing, that same loyalty crumbles. They will betray you, abandon you, discard you like trash, because you are no longer useful. The world is cruel, and it never forgets weakness.
"You were predictable." His voice is calm as water.
The man disintegrated into ash.
The blade remained inside him.
Blood dripped onto the final pages.
He turned one more page.
The battlefield roared.
Lightning struck. Mountains cracked. Hundreds charged. And thousands backed them up.
He ignored them.
Because he had reached it.
The last page.
The page titled:
Transmigration.
His eyes moved slowly.
Carefully.
Absorbing every word.
His lips curved faintly.
So that was the mechanism.
So that was the flaw.
So that was the condition.
He read the final line.
And for the first time in centuries—
He laughed.
It was not loud.
It was not hysterical.
It was… enlightened.
"The cycle ends when the soul finds its name."
A sword pierced through his back.
Another through his chest.
A palm strike shattered his ribs.
He did not resist.
He had already understood everything.
The Book slipped from his hand.
It plopped on the carnage he had made, near his foot. He looked up at the sky, and yelled. " I am the greatest mistake of your precious Heaven.You betrayed me… for paper and ink.
How disappointing. And you shall pay its price, you all betrayed me for a book? We all have been allies for hundreds of years. We walked together in both darkness and light, sit and sat together sharing thoughts and memories. If this is how you betray me for just a mere book? Shall I not ravage you all?"
He moved his hand in the air, the book coming up opening its pages and it started becoming ash.
Grey ashes and dust, flowed in the air.
He had absorbed the power and spells of the book within him.
"Xuan Yin Wuming! Do you understand what you've done? Heaven will not tolerate this defiance! yin wuming, how can you do that ? Heaven's won't be pleased, if they got to know. You will be punished for your crimes, heinous crimes. The massacre and carnage you have made for past three days. You will pay." The old coot yelled his lungs out.
Yin wuming laughed, his voice menacing and dark." Oh? Really please enlighten me."You cannot defeat me. You are a mere general. While I am the Demonic emperor of the dark Realm even the heavens think twice going against me."
Yin wuming, swish the sword from his hand and it flew straight towards the old general, piercing his heart. The general fell down to his knees.
Xuan yin wuming, coughed blood from his mouth.
The Book was already within him; its power.
Their was no greater book then Demons and heavens.
Even though it didn't have a name, it carried power enough to bend Heaven.
The Book was the greatest treasure of Heaven, and xuan yin wuming had stolen it.
He fell on his knees, the sword slipped from his left hand his right hand clutching his heart.
"Death is fair. Fair to everyone; it comes to everyone. Whether your a immortal demon emperor, a surgeon who saves life or a deity. It comes to everyone. The worst truth of murim world." Xuan yin wuming whispered to heavens rather than himself and the army.
Steel entered his body without resistance.
One blade through the back.One through the lung.One cleanly into the heart.
The battlefield shook, mountains collapsing in the distance, lightning splitting the crimson sky — yet for Xuan Yin Wuming, the world had already gone silent.
Blood slid down his robes, soaking into white silk and gold embroidery that had once symbolized sovereignty.
He did not fall immediately.
He stood.
Because for one thousand years he had stood.
A thousand years of calculation. Of slaughter. Of dissection.
He had believed there was a way back.
Earth.
Operating rooms. Cold steel instruments. The hum of machines. The scent of antiseptic.
Reality.
He had chased it like a starving man chases mirages.
And then he had read the final page.
Return is forbidden.
The soul does not reverse.
Heaven does not permit regression.
Transmigration was not mercy.
It was enforcement.
He had never been moving closer to Earth.
He had been moving forward.
Away.
The Book had not been a key.
It had been a confirmation.
There was no path back.
Never was.
For the first time in a thousand years—
He stopped searching.
His knees finally bent.
Was this… calm?
Not despair.
Not rage.
Not grief.
Just clarity.
The stillness that comes when a question that consumed your entire existence is finally answered.
Even if the answer is no.
As darkness swallowed him, he thought:
So it was never random.
It was a selection.
And names are anchors.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
The sky fractured.
And Xuan Yin Wuming died.
—
He died twice.
The first death had been chaotic — filled with noise, blood, and unfinished words.
The second one was silent.
In his second life, he had already been walking on borrowed time. Poisoned slowly. Betrayed carefully. And when the final breath left that fragile body, there was no scream.
Only release.
But death did not take him.
Darkness did not swallow him whole.
Instead —
He opened his eyes.
Before that moment, thirteen seconds had decided everything.
He met the boy.
The real Xuan Wuming.
It was not in a physical place — it was a collapsing inner world. A dim consciousness realm where the child stood, thin and pale, eyes filled with resentment and exhaustion.
"You're not from here," the boy said.
The child knew he was going to lose.
Xuan Yin wuming observed him clinically.
Fear response. Attachment dependency. Underdeveloped ego structure.
"And you are dying," he had replied. Looking at the boy he was fragile but glowing, white light surrounding him.
The boy was pure. He had a soul that was so pure he had heaven's light surrounding him.
The boy's eyes shine.
"Hey big brother, I am really scared of them. But I don't want to die but die at the same time." The young boy cried, coming closer towards Xuan Wuming.
Yin Wuming asked" Whom are you scared of ? And why do you want to die?" He was unsure and taken aback by the young boy's answer. How could he wish to die at such a young age? Has he been treated that unfairly by this world ? Yin wuming thought.
"The second lady of Xuan clan. She hates me because father named me as his successor. I don't want it. I just want to live with my mother on mountains with her alone and wei zhi. Wei zhi is the only girl who protected and fought for me, with everyone behind my mother."
Yin Wuming absorbed his words deeply. Only two people?
"Xuan wuming, you at least have these people, I have lived 1000 years and got no one to be my own. Give up the body. In return, I promise you to protect your friend and mother." Yin Wuming replied coldly, he thought he could do that the least for taking up the body from him. Because he knew the boy wanted to protect his loved ones.
Give a man love and he will trade his crown for a kiss, break his heart and he will raise empires from the ashes of his pain. Affection makes a man soft, fragile and stupid.
Betrayal sharpens him from blunt knife to a sharp edged sword, when he is adored he lives for another but when he is abandoned he lives for himself. Love changes a man, no one can do. But a heart break changes him and hurls him into war with his fate and mind. For every scar he carries becomes a lesson, and every betrayal plants a seed for strategy. A broken man is dangerous for he no longer fears he has lost his tears dry to ashes, his silence hardens into strategy and his rules become maps that guides for him to rule and control.
Chapter 1 end.